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Plaintiffs Alpha One Transporter, Inc. and American Heavy Moving and Rigging, Inc. (collectively “Alpha One”) filed a complaint against Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff Perkins Motor Transport, Inc. (“Perkins”). Perkins subsequently filed a motion to dismiss Alpha One’s complaint for lack of standing on one of the patents-in-suit (the ‘897 Patent) because a co-inventor of the patent had not assigned his rights to Alpha One.

In its opposition, Alpha One did not dispute that the co-inventor status but argued that the co-inventor’s (Mr. McGhie’s) prior assignment of rights in a 2002 provisional patent application (“2002 Assignment”) provided Alpha One ownership of the ‘897 Patent. Because the parties disputed these jurisdictional facts, the district court determined that Alpha One bore the burden of proof to show it had standing to sue on the ‘897 patent.
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Plaintiff Dri-Steem Corporation (“Dri-Steem”) sought production of documents in the possession and control of the defednant’s parent company National Environmental Products, Ltd. (“National”), via its wholly-owned subsidiary NEP Inc., dba Neptronic (“NEP”). Dri-Steem asserted that NEP has custody and control of the requested documents because it can secure them from National to meet its business and litigation needs, as demonstrated by NEP’s ability to obtain highly confidential National documents and information at will.

Although NEP had already been given an opportunity to brief the issue, NEP did not dispute the relevancy of the requested discovery under Rule 26, nor did it provide any argument or evidence to dispute that it has access or control over these documents in order to meet its own business needs. Instead, NEP asserted that it does not have possession and control of the documents.
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Amazon.com (“Amazon”) filed a motion to dismiss Tuxis Technologies, LLC’s (“Tuxis”) complaint for failure to state a claim. Tuxis alleged infringement of the 6,055,513 (“the ‘513 patent”) against Amazon. As explained by the district court, the ‘513 patent relates to a method of upselling. The term “upsell” is defined in the patent to be “an offer or provision of a good or service which is selected for offer to the customer and differs from the good or service for which the primary contact was made.” The patentee defined “real time” as “during the course of the communication initiated with the primary transaction or primary interaction.”

Amazon moved to dismiss, asserting that the ‘513 patent’s claims are invalid because they do not claim patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. After analyzing the recent case law on section 101 of the Patent Act, including Alice Corp., the district court found that “[i]n applying the framework set out above, it is clear that the claim 1 of the ‘513 patent is drawn to unpatentable subject matter. It claims the fundamental concept of upselling–a marketing technique as old as the field itself. While the additional limitations of the claim do narrow its scope, they are insufficient to save it from invalidity.”
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In this patent infringement action between Personal Audio (“Personal Audio”) and Togi Entertainment, Inc. (“Togi”), the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment based on a license defense. They requested summary judgment “to the extent Plaintiff’s claims involve Apple software, products, systems, or services, all of which were previously licensed by Plaintiff under Section 2.2 of the Apple License.”
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As this patent infringement action headed to trial, the district court scolded both parties for their exhibit lists and, in particular, the objections to the exhibit lists. The district court explained that “Affinity has submitted a 39 page list of 979 exhibits. Out of the first 360 exhibits Ford objected to no less than 250, at which point the court stopped counting, although it appears that the percentage of objections is about the same for the remaining 607 exhibits. Even better, the objections are not actually stated and do not refer to specific portions of any exhibit. Instead Ford uses a code consisting of 16 symbols.”

The district court then criticized Ford’s “secret decoder ring” of objections. “Ford did provide a version of a ‘secret decoder ring’ so the court could discern, for example, that exhibits marked ‘BT’ were objected to on the ground that they were ‘Admissible for Bench Trial Only,’ an objection not listed in the Federal Rules of Evidence. However, most of the exhibits were marked with multiple symbols, requiring repeated references to the ‘code.’ For example, Plaintiffs Exhibits 174 through 228 were all marked ‘ R, P, H.'”
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In this patent infringement action between MAG Aerospace Industries, Inc. (“MAG”) and B/E Aerospace, Inc. (“B/E”), MAG filed an ex parte motion as a result of conduct during a deposition. The court began its analysis of the motion by reminding the parties that “[a] deposition is a judicial proceeding that should be conducted with the solemnity and decorum befitting its importance. Lawyers participating in depositions should comport themselves in a professional and dignified manner.”

The court went on to state that “[w]hen lawyers behave otherwise, it reflects poorly on the entire judicial process. The purpose of a deposition is for a witness to provide testimony under oath. The testimony may or may not be admissible at trial; nonetheless, the opposing party is entitled to ascertain the witness’s knowledge, as imperfect and imprecise as that knowledge may be.”
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After the jury trial between Apple and Samsung, and shortly before the July 10, 2014 hearing on post-trial motions, Samsung requested leave to file supplemental briefing to argue that the asserted claims of two of Apple’s patents were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (June 19, 2014) (“Alice“).

The district court permitted the filing of the supplemental briefing on the invalidity issued, but ultimately concluded that Samsung had not timely raised the invalidity issue. “The Court concludes in this case that Samsung could have–but failed to–preserve § 101 invalidity defenses, and that Samsung’s request for the Court to adjudicate a legal theory that was disclosed after trial is untimely, regardless of the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Alice. Accordingly, the Court will not consider the merits of Samsung’s § 101 arguments.”
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Pipeline Technologies Inc. (“Pipeline”) filed a patent infringement action against Telog Instruments Inc. (“Telog”). Telog filed a motion for summary judgment, seeking summary judgment on the ground that the disputed claims of U.S. Patent 7,219,553 (‘553 patent) are invalid for indefiniteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b).
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Plaintiff Deckers Outdoor Corporation (“Plaintiff”) alleged that Defendants Superstar International, Inc. and Sai Liu (“Defendants”) produce, advertise, and sell products that infringe Plaintiff’s design patents for UGG boots. The district court previously ruled that default judgment was appropriate, considering both the procedural requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(b) and the factors laid out in Eitel v. McCool, 782 F.2d 1470, 1471-72 (9th Cir. 1986). In the previous order, the district court left open what relief Plaintiff could recover.

The district court then addressed whether the Plaintiff should be entitled to treble damages. As explained by the district court, “[u]nder 35 U.S.C. § 284 (“Section 284”), when a Court finds that a patent has been infringed, ‘the court shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer, together with interest and costs as fixed by the court.’ One way damages may be measured under Section 284 is by the patentee’s lost profits. Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. Gateway, Inc., 580 F.3d 1301, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2009). The burden of proving damages is on the patentee. Id.”
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In this patent infringement action, FedEx moved for reconsideration after the district court had denied its motion for summary judgment regarding the plaintiff’s claim for inducing patent infringement. FedEx moved for reconsideration based on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2111 (2014).

The district court first analyzed whether the motion to reconsider was procedurally proper. “Under Local Rule 7-18, a motion for reconsideration may be made on the following grounds only:

(a) a material difference in fact or law from that presented to the Court before such decision that in the exercise of reasonable diligence could not have been known to the party moving for reconsideration at the time of such decision, or (b) the emergence of new material facts or a change of law occurring after the time of such decision, or (c) a manifest showing of a failure to consider material facts presented to the Court before such decision. No motion for reconsideration shall in any manner repeat any oral or written argument made in support of or in opposition to the original motion.”
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